Tom Clark - Skepticism and Free Will | For Good Reason

[O2BSoLucky]

I don't really understand this conversation (mostly to do with the fact that I'm crocheting whilst listening).

But the way I see it we have the ability to think and have thoughts due to complex brain chemistry that has evolved over the millions. We have the way we think trained by our culture (think in words vs pictures vs sounds vs ideas vs any pos combinations).

Any choice we make is the result of best believed outcome using prior and other knowledge and environmental/chemical stimulus.

[O2BSoLucky]

@O2BSoLucky 2. We all wish we could 'go back and do it again knowing what we know now' But if we could 'go back' we would have made the same decisions because each decision is decided on best believed outcome (legal/moral/ethical/societal constraints).

That we have free thought within our own heads. But not free will as I cannot levitate or move random objects through thought alone.

'Free will' is the wrong wording for an impossible concept.

Is that what he means?

[pedrohadek]

His questioning of Free Will is fine - it is an unsustained concept. However, his conclusion that the non-existance of free-will negates the need for personal responsability is also ridiculous.

[teewilson333]

I can not come up with one choice Ive made not CAUSED or influenced. Every choice i made was not free AT ALL. Did i choice to conform to a monetary system did i choose to breathe air or drink fluids? If i said "i have freewill im going to move my left arm" then it was caused by the association of freewill. EVERYTHING IS CAUSED no one makes a decision...they arrive at them. Freewill is a primitive assumption.

[xephani76]

Brilliant!

[fuhishva]

Most people that defend the concept of "free will" never specify exactly what the will is supposed to be free from. Free from the laws of the universe? Free from cause and effect? Free from quantum randomness? Free from logical conclusions based on prior experience? Preposterous.

[TheNakedAtheist]

Believing in free will is like believing in god. You can't prove it doesn't exist, but there's no good evidence supporting the position that it does. In other words the burden of proof is on the believer.

[Roenazarrek]

@TheNakedAtheist  responsibility is accepted before making a decision, not something thrust upon you after the fact.

[EdwardHowton]

It's always nice to hear people like this explain concepts I've figured out for myself already. Helps really define it more clearly for myself.

But I think Clark might be misunderstanding why it isn't so challenged by skeptics, the idea of free will. I think it's really a question of bandwidth; there's so -much- nonsense to challenge out there that questions like this can take a bit of a back burner until later. I don't see this question directly causing deaths like homeopathy or religion do.

[German1184]

Thank you, Tom Clark.

[hardinmichael1981]

so if nothing actually changes if we have free will or not, then why should I care? What's the point? What difference does it make? This was so boring and pointless a "discussion".

[German1184]

@hardinmichael1981 It matters because it would mostly change the attitudes and approaches.

Example. if (i) no one really deserve blame or praise for anything, then (ii) we should respond to people pragmatically, without making moral judgments.

In other worlds, trying to correct and rehabilitate people, rather than punitive model.

“I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand human actions.” -- Spinoza

[Roenazarrek]

@German1184 Moral responsibility is something you accept before making a decision as part of the decision making process, not something thrust upon you after the fact by self, righteous but pityfully naive fools.

[German1184]

@Roenazarrek Thank you for the feedback.

I agree that most people wouldn’t change their ways. It's not surprising since many person's actions are *not* consistent with his/her beliefs.

However, it would be very surprising if intense training of the mind didn’t change the shape of the mind.

[spideycentz]

I think therefore I am. That alone distinguishes my individuality from others, determined by my ability to act upon thoughts seperate and alone from others which I have determined for and by myself.

[ConquerCollin]

You could say you had free will to choose x or y, but isn't your choice determined by your prior knowledge, your intelligence, etc? So you are free to choose what your faculties allow you to choose.

I'm still on the fence myself. I don't like how in the video he doesn't give evidence for his skepticism, he just says believe it.

[ConquerCollin]

@ConquerCollin ps actually he does lead people to a page with perhaps some good evidence at the very end of the video

[Scarletpooky]

@ConquerCollin that's how I see it do have free wil to chose options but those options are determined by previous action and current situation.

We don't have total free will eg: no matter how I much I want to take a trip to florida because previous actions/situation has determined I don't have that capacity BUT I do have the choice between visiting friend a, friend b or staying at home and it's not determined which of those options I will chose

[me28andholding]

Or are you skeptical about emergent properties as well. 

[me28andholding]

Sorry fellas you guys sound nuts. Freewill exists as an emergent property of the mind and body. Their interaction gives us the ability to move where ever the other physical laws allow us to and beyond with the inventions of our minds. The type of skepticism you are talking about is no different from calvinism in my eyes and definately religious in origion.

[smarthandsomeguy]

@me28andholding >"Freewill exists as an emergent property"

Precisely because it is emergent, it does not feed back, it emerges from the system (brain) being played out by the laws of nature.

If it fed back, we could observe it. At some point, the emergent property (ghost in the machine) would need to influence brain chemistry to do things that would otherwise not follow just from the laws of nature.

We never observe that, and no such mechanism is necessary to explain observed facts.

[Everstruggling]

@smarthandsomeguy "If it fed back, we could observe it....(it) would need to influence brain chemistry to do things that would otherwise not follow just from the laws of nature."

How could we observe that? For instance, I have a friend who can change his heart rate at will, and I know other people who can rapidly change the frequency of their brain waves with little or no effort. How is that different than the type of feedback that you are suggesting?

[smarthandsomeguy]

@Everstruggling >"How could we observe that?"

For example, if a function is triggered, like nerves firing, without a physical cause.

>"I have a friend who can change his heart rate at will"

I get that. I can raise my arm at will. But when you look at my brain while I do so, you will find, that everything going on there is a physical system being played out by the laws of nature.

Every action (thought, act of will) is caused by physical events in my brain. Where does the 'free' come into play?

[Everstruggling]

@smarthandsomeguy "I can raise my arm at will." Oh sure, be a show off ;) . I think I get it. The examples I gave were the brain responding and reacting to itself. It's just doing things at a conscious level which it normally does at an unconscious level. If there was free will at work, you should be able to move your arm without activating the primary motor cortex. If we observed you doing *that*, then there would be a case for free will. Is that close?

[smarthandsomeguy]

@Everstruggling >"Is that close?"

That's pretty much how I understand it. It should not matter if it's a process within the brain, or on a pathway from the brain to the body. In the end, it's all neurons doing what the laws of nature dictate.

Sidenote: That does not lead to determinism in it's strictest sense, since the laws of nature are fundamentally non-deterministic.

I mean - if you zoom in far enough, brain chemistry is based on physics, and quantum randomness comes into play.

[smarthandsomeguy]

@Everstruggling >"How is that different than the type of feedback"

There seems to be no free agent, that causes anything.

If you were put into an fMRI, and asked to press a left or right button freely, a trained person could predict several SECONDS before the thought formed in your mind which button you will press.

The decision is made by unconscious parts of your brain, basically a complex chemical reaction, and arises in your mind after the fact. You conscious mind never decided anything.

[smarthandsomeguy]

@Everstruggling >"How could we observe that?"

I really like that question btw.

On a macroscopic level, you could detect the supernatural/non physical by a violation of the laws of nature. We never observed that.

We also never observed quantum randomness being not perfectly random, which implies, that no information came into the physical world from elsewhere whenever we looked. (random = no information)

But maybe ethereal minds only interact with the world, when nobody is watching. ;-)

[German1184]

@me28andholding Sorry. I do not see why do you think "emergent properties" would "allow us to and beyond" the physical laws.

Could you elaborate on this?

Thanks.

[GetMeThere1]

"Free will" is ABSURD. I defy anyone to even intelligently describe what it's supposed to BE. One thing "causes" another (or else, some things, such as on the quantum level, may be truly "random"). Not only do we KNOW nothing else, I don't believe we can meaningfully even CONCEIVE of any other way for reality to move through event processes.

[Curse274]

@GetMeThere1 I don't think absurd is the right word. I want to make sure I'm not misinterpreting you. You aren't conflating "free will" with the incredibly useful concepts of "will", "choice" and "decision" are you? The later are abstractions which (I believe) are beyond our intelligence (and consequently our language) to describe in terms of small scale physics (just like "life").

[GetMeThere1]

@Curse274 : My main problem is that no one seems capable of precisely DEFINING what this "free will" could possibly be--yet people "believe" in it. Our brains (the ONLY known location of consciousness) are meat machines, which MUST work the way all other machines (and all other processes of ANY kind--except quantum) work.

You may certainly call any of the workings of that meat machine "will" "choice" or "decisions" if you please. You may also declare people "responsible."

[Curse274]

@GetMeThere1 I think I see. We define randomness as non-determined. But people define "free will" as non-determined and non-random don't they? But something that is both not A and not (not A) IS absurd (as you put it). I think it's just like death. Some people can't live with it (see what I did there) :)

But seriously, here's what will really get you thinking. Is the degree of how determined or random nature is itself determined?

[GetMeThere1]

@Curse274 : As far as anyone knows, events at the level of neurons are not influenced by subatomic events; thus events in the brain are 100% determined.

But, I agree with the implication of your comment: if nature has even a slight random component then one CANNOT call events determined.

I'm content to admit we live in a random nature--but for any third way I'd need someone to even DESCRIBE IT--surely if it can be shown it can be described in some way. I've yet to hear a cogent description.

[mbarkhau]

I would say John D. Rockefeller was a greater philanthropist, because money wasn't as inflated back then.